![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It's the day after Veteran's Day
And I'm still thinking about them. (Told you I did.)
I love this little chalk talk about the portion of the entire US budget the DOD, specifically The Pentagon, gets.
And then I see something like this really Useful Site and get angry.
I'm the one who likes to look at percentages, not actual dollars - but even this pisses me off.
When it comes down to the actual Life in our armed services - the people that make it all work - suddenly, we're back in school and hosting fund raisers to buy them a warm coat in the winter.
The people suddenly MUST BECOME charity cases and become objects of pity. Sickening.
And look - we're spending HOW MUCH on their portion of the GNP again?
People are the expensive part of any budget, to be honest. Where the bleep is the money going if not TO THEM?
Then the local NPR affiliate broadcasts this delightful piece of non-news last night on the drive home.
"Salas says California’s Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t doing a good enough job of that. Only 12 percent of the state’s veterans actually collect the benefits they’re due."
Wonder what it's like elsewhere.
I've had direct experience with the VA in San Bernardino county - the VA there is across the street from the best care anywhere in that county, Loma Linda University Medical Center.
Seriously. The place would not pass a JAHCO inspection to save its life - but it doesn't have to! It's a VA! But they're one of the lucky ones - they can refer across the street, and do. (Loma Linda is a not-for-profit foundation hospital.) Don't forget - it's a benefit, not insurance. If you don't use their facilities - eh. Too bad, so sad, we don't reimburse.
I can hazard a reasonable guess why they're not distributing 'benefits' - seriously, the penal system does a better job of providing services, more of them and so on. (Biggest provider of mental health services in California - the penal system. Yes it is.)
Who would waste their time banging a head against the wall for nothing. I never recommend the VA for services. I'd rather fall back to Medi-Cal/Medicaid and hold car washes. That useless.
And Jim did his clinical in a VA hospital. Ask him if you want more direct reports. What HE has to say is barely repeatable in polite company.
No, veterans deserve more than one day - and an exceptional day at that - and then be treated like ugly foster children on every day including that one thereafter.
That said, things are what they are and I'll be over at Soldier's Angels and the USO as much as I can. It is what it is.
And IT SUCKS.
I love this little chalk talk about the portion of the entire US budget the DOD, specifically The Pentagon, gets.
And then I see something like this really Useful Site and get angry.
I'm the one who likes to look at percentages, not actual dollars - but even this pisses me off.
When it comes down to the actual Life in our armed services - the people that make it all work - suddenly, we're back in school and hosting fund raisers to buy them a warm coat in the winter.
The people suddenly MUST BECOME charity cases and become objects of pity. Sickening.
And look - we're spending HOW MUCH on their portion of the GNP again?
People are the expensive part of any budget, to be honest. Where the bleep is the money going if not TO THEM?
Then the local NPR affiliate broadcasts this delightful piece of non-news last night on the drive home.
"Salas says California’s Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t doing a good enough job of that. Only 12 percent of the state’s veterans actually collect the benefits they’re due."
Wonder what it's like elsewhere.
I've had direct experience with the VA in San Bernardino county - the VA there is across the street from the best care anywhere in that county, Loma Linda University Medical Center.
Seriously. The place would not pass a JAHCO inspection to save its life - but it doesn't have to! It's a VA! But they're one of the lucky ones - they can refer across the street, and do. (Loma Linda is a not-for-profit foundation hospital.) Don't forget - it's a benefit, not insurance. If you don't use their facilities - eh. Too bad, so sad, we don't reimburse.
I can hazard a reasonable guess why they're not distributing 'benefits' - seriously, the penal system does a better job of providing services, more of them and so on. (Biggest provider of mental health services in California - the penal system. Yes it is.)
Who would waste their time banging a head against the wall for nothing. I never recommend the VA for services. I'd rather fall back to Medi-Cal/Medicaid and hold car washes. That useless.
And Jim did his clinical in a VA hospital. Ask him if you want more direct reports. What HE has to say is barely repeatable in polite company.
No, veterans deserve more than one day - and an exceptional day at that - and then be treated like ugly foster children on every day including that one thereafter.
That said, things are what they are and I'll be over at Soldier's Angels and the USO as much as I can. It is what it is.
And IT SUCKS.
Re: um - no.
The VA system gets squeezed and manages to provide exemplary care in spite of it. I find it really amazing.
Are you actually a veteran? Have you ever been in the VA system?
Re: um - no.
The VA system, if it ever provides care - does it without any oversight. Your sites look germaine, but they also appear to be clearinghouses for individual studies, which might or might not be as good as it looks from the summaries.
Me, a veteran? Baby, I'm too old and female to have been seriously considered for such a thing. My older brother taught the first class of women to be allowed into the Coast Guard, and I was 12 at the time. Too close to Vietnam, very much in the midst of Reagan...no, you did not choose to serve if you were 1) female, 2) Californian and 3) had a choice.
That said, I am surrounded by veterans, and have had to find care for them for chronic issues *directly* related to their service. Yes, I've dealt with the VA system in California, and can completely believe that they only get asked 12% of the time for help. Because nobody goes to them for help if they have any other option available to them. It's that nasty, and there's worse across the country.
I'm glad you've gotten what you needed from them. So far, you're singular in my experience.
Re: um - no.
?? It has more oversight than the private sector.
So far, you're singular in my experience.
So far, you're singular in mine. And the statistics say I'm more right than you are.
Re: um - no.
Thank you for making clear your continued interest in this discussion.
...
For the record, no. Not so much.
(I, at least gave your sources the benefit of the doubt. I don't have the resources to either validate or debunk them. That, I leave to snopes.com - in a pinch - and your sites are clearinghouses for data. I couldn't - by myself - hope to say yea or nay one way or the other.)
Don't tell me what I've experienced, toots. I'm the one who lives here. And keep your dirty feet out of my head.
Re: um - no.
His care can be described as horrible. He's had an issue with his hip that occurred on active duty that the VA has consistently ignored or minimized. He's 47 and walks with a cane and is in pain all the time.
My mother suffers from PTSD caused by an attack while on a drill weekend in Chicago. Her care at the VA in Illinois and in Kentucky was to rotate her though the drug of the month with no cognitive therapy. It took my own intervention to get her to use her private insurance to get good care. We also discovered that she had a tumor on her thyroid gland which exacerbated everything.
And as I mentioned above, I saw the worst of things at VA St. Louis.